1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to shuttle systems for moving loose goods between machines that operate on the loose goods and more particularly to a laundry shuttle system for moving laundry into and/or out of industrial washing machines and industrial drying machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
One conventional industrial laundry washing/drying system includes a shuttle (that rides on rails) with a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt is oriented to convey in a direction transverse to the direction that the rails run. In operation, this conventional shuttle: (i) travels along the rails to the vicinity of an industrial washing machine that has completed washing a load of laundry; (ii) receives the wet laundry onto its conveyor belt from the industrial washing machine; (iii) travels along the rails to move the wet laundry to the vicinity of an industrial dryer; and (iv) conveys the wet laundry into the industrial dryer using the conveyor belt. The conveyor belt may telescope, for example, to avoid physical interference with the washer or dryer before it is fully aligned with the washer or dryer.
Typically, these shuttle systems, described in the preceding paragraph, only move laundry from an industrial washer to an industrial dryer. Typically, the operation of getting soiled laundry into the industrial washing machine is not performed by the shuttle, but rather either: (i) by hand; or (ii) by separate automatic hardware.
First, regarding the systems where laundry is fed by hand, when soiled laundry is fed into the industrial washing machine by these by-hand systems, a user empties articles of soiled laundry from a bag and into the mouth of a spinning washing machine. There is some level of risk of injury to the user due to the heavy moving machinery of the industrial washing machine.
Second, regarding systems where soiled laundry is automatically fed into the industrial washing machine, a bag of soiled laundry is suspended from a track on the ceiling. The bag is moved along the track to a position above the washing machine, in the vicinity of the mouth of the washing machine. Bag-opening hardware and laundry-guiding hardware that is built into each industrial washing machine open the bag (by opening a special fastener at the bottom of the bag) and guide the soiled articles of laundry down into the mouth of the washing machine. Generally speaking, there are two types of guiding hardware: (i) passive; and (ii) active. Passive guiding hardware typically takes the form of a chute or a ramp that the soiled articles of laundry fall down onto from above and then slide along down into the mouth of the washing machine. Active guiding hardware takes the form of a pusher that moves to push and/or pull the soiled articles of laundry down into the mouth of the washing machine.
Some publications that may be of interest may include the following: (i) U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,186 (“Fesmire 1”); (ii) U.S. Pat. No. 3,742,738 (“Frotriede”); (iii) U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,993 (“Dreher”); (iv) U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,090 (“Toth”); (v) U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,959 (“Pellerin 1”); (vi) U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,498 (“Pellerin 2”); (vii) European Patent Application 0 287 989 A2 (“Washex”); (ix) US patent application (“USPA”) 2007/0113599 (“Harfmann”); (x) USPA 2004/0129031 (“Bringewatt”); (xi) U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,772 (“Hendren”); (xii) German Offenlegungsschrift DE 10 2006 055 494 A1 (“Kannegiesser”); (xiii) USPA 2004/0191036 (“Nield”); and (xiv) U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,849 (“Fesmire 2”).
Description of the Related Art Section Disclaimer: To the extent that specific publications are discussed above in this Description of the Related Art Section, these discussions should not be taken as an admission that the discussed publications (for example, published patents) are prior art for patent law purposes. For example, some or all of the discussed publications may not be sufficiently early in time, may not reflect subject matter developed early enough in time and/or may not be sufficiently enabling so as to amount to prior art for patent law purposes. To the extent that specific publications are discussed above in this Description of the Related Art Section, they are all hereby incorporated by reference into this document in their respective entirety(ies).